e credebant
Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. See Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c.
5.]

[Footnote 18: Mosheim de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum
Magnum, page 153. In this masterly performance, which I shall often
have occasion to quote he enters much more fully into the state of the
primitive church than he has an opportunity of doing in his General
History.]

[Footnote 18: This is incorrect: all the traditions concur in placing
the abandonment of the city by the Christians, not only before it was
in ruins, but before the seige had commenced. Euseb. loc. cit., and
Le Clerc.--M.]

[Footnote 19: Eusebius, l. iii. c. 5. Le Clerc, Hist.
Ecclesiast. p. 605. During this occasional absence, the bishop and
church of Pella still retained the title of Jerusalem. In the same
manner, the Roman pontiffs resided seventy years at Avignon; and the
patriarchs of Alexandria have long since transferred their episcopal
seat to Cairo.]

[Footnote 20: Dion Cassius, l. lxix. The exile of the Jewish nation from
Jerusalem is attested by Aristo of Pella, (apud Euseb. l. iv. c. 6,) and
is mentioned by several ecclesiastical writers; though some of them too
hastily extend this interdiction to the whole country of Palestine.]

[Footnote 21: Eusebius, l. iv. c. 6. Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. By
comparing their unsatisfactory accounts, Mosheim (p. 327, &c.) has drawn
out a very distinct representation of the circumstances and motives of
this revolution.]

When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been restored to
Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were imputed to the obscure
remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to accompany their Latin bishop.
They still preserved their former habitation of Pella, spread themselves
into the villages adjacent to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable
church in the city of Beroea, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in
Syria. [22] The name of Nazarenes was deemed too honorable for those
Christian Jews, and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of
their understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous
epithet of Ebionites. [23] In a few years after the return of the church
of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy, whether a man
who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued
to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation. The
humane temper of Justin Martyr inclined him to answer this question in
the affirm